In these places, eligible people get monthly payments. Nataliia Budianska / Shutterstock.com
Ready for some free money? If you live in the right place, that dream could be reality. Local governments are offering monthly payments — often with few strings attached and no work requirements — to specific groups of people who are at the economic margins. These programs can be controversial. Some see them as a form of economic justice, a way to ensure poorer Americans can make ends meet.
Find out what you must disclose when putting your home on the market and why it matters. Prostock-studio / Shutterstock.com
When selling your home, it’s in your best interest to make it sound as appealing as possible. But while disclosing its faults might sound counterintuitive, it is, in fact, an essential step. Indeed, there are several things that you’re required by law to disclose to potential buyers, and failure to do so can have serious repercussions. As a seller, omitting to reveal certain information can…
When was the last time you looked carefully at your home internet bill? You may be wasting money on fees. Find out how some people could save $180 a year. [[{“value”:”
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I go out of my way to avoid extra fees as much as possible. ATM fees, bank account maintenance fees, and foreign transaction fees are some fees I strategically avoid paying. Another expense I stopped paying many years ago is home internet equipment rental fees. Many people have this additional fee included on their monthly internet bill and aren’t aware of how much it costs them. Let me show you how to ditch this unnecessary fee for good.
If you have home internet access and don’t remember buying the router or modem you use, you’re likely paying a monthly equipment rental fee. Most internet service providers let customers borrow this equipment for a monthly fee. These fees can quickly add up and significantly impact your checking account balance.
Many major internet service providers charge at least $10 per month, but a fee of $15 per month is common. A $15 equipment rental fee will cost you $180 annually. If you continue using the same internet service provider for a decade and keep renting its equipment, you’ll spend $1,800 on these fees. That’s a lot of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
Are you sick of paying equipment rental fees? You can eliminate this expense by purchasing your own equipment and no longer renting from your internet service provider. This will require you to spend money upfront, but doing this can save you a lot of money in the long run. Many modern home internet equipment options are combinations of modems and routers in one.
Many internet service providers offer guidance on approved devices that work with their services. Check your internet company’s website for more information so you end up with a compatible device. One option is to buy brand-new equipment. Another more affordable option is to get a used device online or from someone in your community.
If you buy a device, contact your internet service provider to have the rental fee removed from your future bills. It will likely be removed after you return the borrowed device. This move could help you free up income for other expenses or personal finance goals.
I’ve owned my current piece of equipment for about five years. I bought a brand-new device for around $100. If that sounds expensive, I have some good news. You can find much cheaper devices, including options for around $50. Take some time comparing options and look for deals to avoid overspending.
I chose a newer model device because I was moving into my first home and wanted an unused, well-rated device that would last a long time. Considering I spent about $100 and would have paid about $900 in fees throughout the last five years, I saved around $800. I’m happy with that!
This is one easy way to trim your monthly spending. Reviewing your spending carefully and eliminating unnecessary costs, including extra fees charged by cable or internet service providers, can be beneficial. If you want to take a closer look at your spending and learn how to budget your money, we recommend using one of the apps on our best budgeting apps list.
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You don’t have to look at your brokerage account every day. But read on to see what might happen if you stop checking up on your investments period. [[{“value”:”
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Some people check their brokerage account balances on a daily basis. And people who do that may be causing themselves some unnecessary stress.
The stock market can swing wildly from one day to the next, so checking your portfolio every day isn’t actually a great idea. If anything, it might push you to make rash decisions that don’t benefit you financially, like selling a stock whose value has dropped temporarily rather than waiting things out and avoiding losses.
But while checking your brokerage account balance daily isn’t a good thing, it’s also unwise to never look in on your portfolio. If you don’t take that key step, you might miss out on opportunities to shift your assets in a way that benefits you.
If you don’t make any effort to monitor your brokerage account, for one thing, you might fail to recognize a losing investment that’s only going to get worse. It’s one thing for a stock you own to lose value due to a broad market trend. And also, a stock of yours might lose value temporarily following an event like a disappointing earnings call or, in the case of a healthcare stock, a drug trial that fails.
But let’s say you have a stock in your portfolio that you bought at a price of $100 per share a year ago. It may be that three months after you purchased it, the share price fell to $90. And it may have fallen to $80 a few months later, and so forth.
By now, that stock may be trading at $60 per share with a negative outlook, so selling it could be a good way to minimize your losses. But you may not know to sell that stock if you don’t peek at your brokerage account every so often.
Another issue with not monitoring your brokerage account is that you might end up with a portfolio that’s imbalanced. It’s important to maintain a diverse mix of investments, and to avoid putting too much money into a single asset or stock. But as stocks gain value, what can sometimes happen is that they end up comprising a larger chunk of your portfolio than expected.
Take NVIDIA, for example. As of this writing, its stock price is up almost 220% on a year-over-year basis. To put it another way, a year ago, a single share of the company traded at about $280. Now, a single share is worth around $893.
Now on the one hand, that’s a good thing, because if you owned a bunch of shares of NVIDIA during that time, your portfolio is up in that regard. On the other hand, let’s say the total value of your stock portfolio is $10,000. And let’s say that you started out with five shares of NVIDIA worth $280 a piece for a total position of $1,400.
It’s not so unreasonable to have $1,400 out of a $10,000 portfolio in a single stock. But if your five shares of NVIDIA are now worth $4,465 and your portfolio value in total is still about $10,000 (perhaps due to other investments of yours having lost value), that’s kind of a problem. It means that almost half of your brokerage account is invested in a single asset.
If the value of NVIDIA shares were to plunge tomorrow, your portfolio could lose a lot of money. So it’s important to check your account regularly and correct for imbalances. In this case, that would mean selling a few NVIDIA shares, taking the gain, and using that money to buy other stocks.
You definitely do not have to check your brokerage account on a daily or weekly basis. You don’t even have to commit to checking on a monthly basis. But at the very least, aim to give it a look once every quarter. That way, you’ll see what’s going on, and you’ll be in a better position to take action as necessary.
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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Need a mortgage? Read on to see why you may want to do your rate shopping quickly. [[{“value”:”
Image source: Getty Images
When you’re gearing up to sign a large loan, like a mortgage, it’s important to shop around for the best rate. Your mortgage is something you may end up paying off for 15 to 30 years. So the lower the rate you snag, the more affordable your monthly payments are apt to be.
However, to do your rate shopping, you basically have to apply for multiple mortgages. And that has the potential to hurt your credit score. You can minimize that damage significantly, though, by doing your rate shopping quickly rather than spreading it out.
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Any time you apply to borrow money, whether in the form of a mortgage, auto loan, or new credit card, a hard inquiry is done on your credit report. This is a lender or credit card issuer’s way of checking your credit to make sure you’re not too risky a borrower.
Every hard inquiry on your record has the potential to drag your credit score down by a few points — usually somewhere in the vicinity of five to 10 points. As such, a single hard inquiry isn’t so problematic, as it may not impact your credit score all that much. But multiple hard inquiries have the potential to lower your credit score by a larger sum. And that could be problematic when applying for credit.
That’s why it’s a good idea to do your mortgage rate shopping quickly. Experian, one of the major credit bureaus, explains that FICO, the most popular credit scoring model in the U.S., treats hard inquiries related to a single loan as a single credit event if they’re done within a certain window. That window used to be 14 days, but is now most commonly 45 days.
In other words, let’s say you apply with six lenders in an attempt to see which one has the best mortgage rate. If you submit one application per week so you’re done applying in 42 days, that’s within the 45-day window above. For FICO® Score purposes, those six hard inquiries related to your mortgage application will count as a single one. So while your score might drop five to 10 points, it shouldn’t drop by, say, 30 to 60 points, which is a much bigger deal.
Shopping for a mortgage quickly could help minimize associated damage to your credit score. But regardless of that, it’s still a good idea to try to do your rate shopping quickly, because chances are, if you’re at a point where you need a mortgage, you can’t afford to dilly dally.
You may be under pressure to close on a home you’ve made an offer on by a certain time. So the sooner you put your mortgage in place, the sooner that ball gets rolling.
It’s also a good idea to try to boost your credit score ahead of your mortgage application for the best possible rate. You can do so by checking your credit report for errors and, if possible, paying down some credit card balances you’re carrying to lower your credit utilization ratio.
This credit card is not just good – it’s so exceptional that our experts use it personally. It features a lengthy 0% intro APR period, a cash back rate of up to 5%, and all somehow for no annual fee! Click here to read our full review for free and apply in just 2 minutes.
We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Women may need a serious retirement savings catch-up. Read on to see how to pull that off. [[{“value”:”
Image source: Getty Images
As of early 2024, the average Social Security beneficiary was receiving $1,907 per month, or about $23,000 in annual income. Even if you’re not a particularly high earner, that might read like a serious pay cut. That’s why it’s so important to do what you can to build up a nice retirement nest egg.
But recent data from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies shows that the median retirement savings balance among women is just $44,000. And while that’s actually quite a lot of money for a woman in, say, her mid or late 20s, it’s not a lot of money for the typical woman in her 40s or 50s. That’s why it’s important to be honest about the amount of retirement savings you have compared to where you are in your career.
As a general guideline, Fidelity says it’s good to have the equivalent of your annual salary in an individual retirement account (IRA) or 401(k) by age 30. So if you’re 29 earning $44,000 a year and you have $44,000 on hand for retirement already, you’re in a good spot. But if you’re 41 earning $65,000 a year and your nest egg is only worth $44,000 at present, you have more work to do — especially since Fidelity recommends having three times your income set aside for retirement by age 40.
You may be in a place where you know your retirement savings could use work. Here are a couple of ways to give your nest egg a boost.
Getting an employer match in your 401(k) plan isn’t a given. But Vanguard says 95% of its retirement plans offer some type of matching contribution. So it pays to find out what your employer match looks like and contribute enough money to get every dollar of it.
Remember, when your employer funds your 401(k) to some degree, that’s not just a lump sum of money that’s yours for retirement. It’s also money you can invest.
The stock market has returned an average of 10% annually over the past 50 years. So let’s say you’re 32 and intend to retire at 67. The funds you invest today could have 35 years to grow. If you can snag a $2,000 employer contribution to your 401(k) this year, and your investments in that account deliver a 10% annual return between now and when you turn 67, that $2,000 alone will have grown to be worth more than $56,000. To put it another way, a single $2,000 contribution could leave you with more than the current median retirement savings balance among women.
Women’s wages often lag behind those paid to their male counterparts. It’s a lousy facet of the workforce, and one advocates are fighting to change. But for now, if limited wages are making it difficult for you to fund a retirement plan, you can compensate with boosted income from the gig economy.
Working a second job could not only free up money for your retirement savings but also help you build skills and make connections. That could, in time, result in a better paying job — one whose wages make it possible to fund a retirement account consistently so you don’t have to perpetually hold down a second job.
The fact that women have a median of $44,000 saved for retirement may be an interesting statistic to read. But the reality is that it’s important to make sure your savings are where they should be given your personal situation.
So either way, if you feel you’re behind, try your best to claim your entire employer 401(k) match. Also, turn to the gig economy if your income needs a lift so you can free up money for your long-term savings. You’ll be thankful you did down the line.
This credit card is not just good – it’s so exceptional that our experts use it personally. It features a lengthy 0% intro APR period, a cash back rate of up to 5%, and all somehow for no annual fee! Click here to read our full review for free and apply in just 2 minutes.
We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Maurie Backman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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